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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 423
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Contributed By An Actiye Fkiejstd Of The...
manhood—who concern us most importantly . But now , of all the children born in our country in the equal state of nature ' s ignorance ,
which is- the class where our labors of education ought to be chiefly directed ? The case is as clear as day—the class which without our
aid _tvill be _left in ignorance / At the base of our social pyramid lie two great orders of human
beings . In the one , the parents , whatever be their poverty , desire and seek for their children the best education they can procure ;
and- "what they fail to give in school learning is , in an important sense , supplied by all the beneficial influences of an honest home .
But beneath this visible stratum of society there lies another , too often hidden from our careless glance . There is a class in which the
parents ( if any living ones be found to acknowledge the hapless children ) do not desire or seekin any wayto educate them .
During their whole adolescence the , boys and gir , ls of this class are left as wild and uncared-for in the wicked streets , as so many
young leverets or rabbits in the woods . But , alas ! the comparison stops here . When the human creature seeks its lair at night , it is
no innocent ferny form—no safe , soft burrow its parent has prepared for it—rather a very kennel of unclean iniquitous devouring
hellhounds . The child _' s home ( oh , holy word profaned !) is a filthy room in a lodging-house where whole families herd like obscene
swine . A home where drunkenness is the rule , theft the instruction , blasp Of hemy these the two lan classes guage , of children prostitution can there the trade be a ! question -which
deserves our most * strenuous efforts ? Shall we go on for ever devoting our whole care to the garden well fenced from evil and planted
already with many a flower , and shall we never work in the desolate field where no good seed has ever taken root , but where the enemy
has sown so many tares that the crop thereof may well overrun our whole land in years to come ? " But surely this class of wholly
uneducated children must be a mere nominal fraction of the community ? " It contains at this moment 2 , 861 , 000 souls . *
Now it is difficult to speak adequately of a question which concerns the spiritual well-being of nearly 3 , 000 , 000 human souls—souls to
be left to the influences of the streets , the gin-palace , the lodging houseand the brothelor to be brought under the best teaching our
utmost , efforts can offer , them , to counteract all the mischief of the rest .
If the hearty co-operation of the powers which dispense the national educational funds were engaged on the side of these efforts ,
much hope might be entertained of waging successful war . But what can we expect to accomplish when we find that the aid granted
to every other class of education stops short precisely at the schools
who belong Claims * are See of le speech t Ragged ft uall wi y thout to of Schools this the any lowest Prince education , " p . vi class Consort . from I , t bu is at t any not that Educational caus asserted the e fi . gures that Conference represent all tiiese : all — children " those The
Notices Of Books. 423
NOTICES OF BOOKS . 423
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1859, page 423, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021859/page/63/
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